Patents

Marc Baudry is Professor at the University of Paris-Nanterre in France and research fellow at EconomiX (CNRS) and Climate Economics Chair.Béatrice Dumont is Professor of Economics at Sorbonne Paris Cité in France and a visiting Professor at the College of Europe.

• Introduction ixChapter 1 The Purpose of Patents 11.1 Introduction 11.2 Patents as an incentive mechanism 21.2.1 The key question of appropriability of returns for innovation 31.2.2 Patents as a solution for the lack of appropriability 71.2.3 Patents and their design 111.2.4 Are patents a property right like any other? 221.3 Patents as intangible assets 261.3.1 From factory to fabless: the growing role of the obligation to disclose the content of patents 271.3.2 The emergence of patents as intangible assets 301.3.3 The delicate question of assessing patents as intangible assets 331.3.4 Patents as funding leverage 401.3.5 The commoditization of patents 441.4 Case study: Intellectual Ventures Inc 51Chapter 2 The Imprimatur of Patent Offices in the Face of Reforms 552.1 Introduction 552.2 The exponential demography of patents 562.3 The impact of regulatory factors and legal decisions in the United States 662.3.1 Patent continuations or “evergreening” 722.3.2 Reform attempts 742.4 Regulatory developments in Europe 942.4.1 The unitary patent and the unified court: the final stage of a European patent system? 972.4.2 The supposed economic advantages of the unitary system 1032.4.3 From intention to reality 106Chapter 3 The Judiciarization of Patents 1113.1 Introduction 1113.2 Should patent trolls be tracked down? 1133.2.1 A class of heterogeneous actors 1153.2.2 The business model of litigation PAEs 1173.2.3 What is the scale of this phenomenon? 1213.2.4 The consequences for innovation 1263.2.5 A longstanding and potentially beneficial role 1293.2.6 Proposals for reforms 1343.3 Standards and patents: a necessary but tense coexistence 1353.3.1 FRAND licenses as safeguards for essential patents 1363.3.2 The hold-up theory faced with the facts 1393.3.3 The availability of injunctions 1453.3.4 Patent ambushes 1593.3.5 Royalty-stacking 1623.3.6 “Best FRAND forever” or the delicate question of royalty amounts 1643.4 Case study: sovereign patent funds 172Chapter 4 A New Place under the Sun for Patents? 1774.1 Introduction 1774.2 The patent as one innovation policy instrument among many 1784.2.1 Innovation awards, or how to rehabilitate an old approach 1794.2.2 Could innovation awards replace patents? 1824.2.3 Complementarity with support for R&D efforts 1874.2.4 An example of complementarity between instruments: low-carbon innovation 1894.3 Patents in support of open innovation strategies 1924.3.1 Patent pools as a premise for open innovation 1934.3.2 From R&D cooperation to open innovation 1984.3.3 Why is open innovation so “patent-compatible?” 2044.3.4 Patents at the center of intermediate innovation 2084.4 Case study: “My patents are yours” – development in the Tesla case 211Conclusion 217Bibliography 221Index 251